Over the last several days we have held a company retreat here in Boulder. We decided to get our team together in person to discuss future strategy and product development. One of the goals of his time here was to create better line management solutions. We spent quite a bit of time analyzing options and how things worked and what things we wanted to solve. As we observed very closely how line holders are used, we came across some interesting insights. One of these insights was how one user was getting horrible line twisting, yet I (Daniel) never experienced line twisting problems at all when using the tenkara line holder. We asked ourselves why and started observing what was happening at every level of detail we could. Then it hit me that while the other user held the line between two fingers, I had been using my entire hand while winding the line. That was the only difference we could notice. And, it seemed that switching to using a whole hand actually helped with the line twisting problems some people may have.
I would like to hear your experiences with line holders and other line management systems. And, especially, I would really like to hear if you had problems with line twisting and were able to get rid of that by using the whole hand as I show in the video below.

9 Responses to Reducing twisting on a line holder

EZ Keepers, in my opion, remain the most elegant solution to line storage. The line never twists, and the extra O-ring provides a convenient way to secure the fly when not fishing. Also, the rod will easily fit in the rod tube with the EZ Keepers attached.

Before watching your video I wound line on my spool. Being conscious of how I wind on the line. I found I use my whole hand just as you do, except I don’t close my fingers as tightly.

I do two other things differently. After about 40% of the line is wound on I reverse the hold on the spool and wind the line the other way. Start out winding toward myself, flip the spool and wind away from myself. This causes the twist being pushed toward the end of the line to untwist.

The other thing I do, well part of the time, is I use larger spools. I have a few of the 90mm blue spools. Each pass round the spool puts an extra 2.5 inches of line on the spool. Five turns gains an extra foot of line on the spool. I like the larger spools. Though most of my spools are the smaller 70mm spools and I have a few of the Raji spools, which are just a little smaller, 65mm I think. I put shorter lines on them. The longer lines on the larger spools.

David, I think I closed my fingers more tightly on the video in order to show more clearly what I was doing. Indeed they are a bit looser than there.
And, yes, larger spools will certainly cause fewer twists, albeit at the sacrifice of carrying larger items. Thanks for sharing the feedback on how you do it.

It would seem to me that using the whole hand would create more surface area to actually create MORE twisting, thus forcing the tip to rotate more and remove the twist better. Using only two fingers creates less twist, but it is not powerful enough to force the tip to rotate; therefore, the twist remains. Daniel, would you say that’s an accurate description of why this works?

Allan, yes. That is indeed a method that can be used as well. I have just found it takes a very long time to follow that process, whereas using the whole hand should allow for very quick winding I think.